


Prelude

by entanglednow



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-13
Updated: 2011-06-13
Packaged: 2017-10-20 21:18:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/217192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entanglednow/pseuds/entanglednow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Is there any particular reason I have to be in here while you're having a bath?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prelude

John's been sprawled on the sofa for the last hour. He'd found a comfortable position and then _sunk_ into it. More than willing to let the cushions consume him, until he fell asleep, or had to get up to pee.

He'd forgotten the more important 'had to get up for Sherlock.'

" _John_."

There's no way to tell if Sherlock's in mortal danger, or poisoned, or if he just wants John to look at some mould he'd found particularly interesting. He doubts there's much difference between them, in Sherlock's head.

John swears and starts the uncomfortable, and unflattering, process of working himself upright. He's fairly sure Sherlock's in the bathroom. He hadn't said what he was going to be doing in there. John hadn't asked. Mostly because he'd been making lunch at the time, and hadn't particularly wanted photographs of burst eyeballs shown to him...again.

" _Bring my phone._ "

John stops halfway up the stairs, swears, and slowly starts trudging back down again.

Sherlock doesn't demand anything else, before John makes his way to the top of the stairs, turning the handle and pushing the door open with a foot.

"If you're doing bloodstain analysis in the sink again -"

John stops, door knocking sharply on his elbow when it rebounds off the wall.

Sherlock's stretched out in the bath, every obscene inch of him, curls wet across his forehead, one arm and one leg thrown over the side, like he couldn't be bothered to get in properly. But, no, he hasn't been like that for long, because water's still falling steadily from the gentle curve of his fingers, and his toes, dotting the bathroom floor in a way that he most definitely isn't going to clean up when he's finished.

"Phone," Sherlock demands, with one imperious wave of his wet hand.

John's too stunned to do much more than blindly hand it over. Possibly because he hasn't worked up enough 'what the hell?' yet.

"Stay, sit, I might need you." Sherlock points to the edge of the bath, while he fusses with his phone, damp fingers moving on the screen. John wants to tell him that phones aren't waterproof and he's going to absolutely ruin it. But there are more important things to comment on. He presses his finger and thumb against the bridge of his nose and exhales.

"Is there - is there any particular reason I have to be in here while you're having a bath?"

"Shouting through the door would have been inefficient," Sherlock tells him, in that special 'I'm giving you obvious pieces of information because I like you,' tone he has.

"It's what normal people would do," John says slowly. Sometimes there's no response to Sherlock but common sense, sometimes common sense will get through.

"Normal people are idiots. Also, I wanted my phone." Sherlock balances an arm on the side, water streaming from the curve of his elbow, and then trailing the long line of his forearm. John is half-annoyed with himself for noticing. But his opportunities to look at naked people have been few and far between lately, and Sherlock really is very naked. It's difficult to not look. Because it's only natural to wonder, after all, to see how people are put together under their clothes. He doesn't have the observational powers of Sherlock, but it's hard not to focus on - on everything.

Sherlock laughs, naked chest giving one, quick jerk. There's a line of water droplets curving down his throat that have to have fallen from his other arm.

John's almost certain that Sherlock's laughing at him. He scowls and tries to stand in as impatient a way as possible. He looks down at Sherlock's foot instead, though that doesn't help at all. There's a drop of water making its way along the arch, tumbling towards the side of his foot, heading for the pale edge. He forces himself to stop looking at anything he shouldn't. Which is much harder than it sounds, because there's _so much_ he thinks he probably shouldn't be looking at.

Sherlock's stopped concentrating on his phone, and is now watching him, through narrowed eyes. His eyelashes are wet, cheeks faintly red.

"Will you stop looming. It's irritating."

John gives in, abandons any pretence that they're normal people, with normal rules of human behaviour. Because trying to keep traction on this particular slippery slope is, he suspects, a losing battle. He carefully settles on the edge of the bath. It's especially hard to ignore the fact that Sherlock is naked from this angle. But he's trying his best, glaring at the upraised curve of a knee instead.

"Sherlock?"

"Hmm."

"You wanted something," John reminds him, and if he sounds a little annoyed that's understandable.

Sherlock nods without looking up. "Wash my back."

The steam must be getting to him. He's certain he must have heard that wrong.

"What?"

"Wash my back, you might as well, while you're in here."

Apparently, no, he hadn't misheard after all.

"I'm not going to -" No, John thinks, there isn't enough strident protest in that. "I'm not washing anything," he tries again, in a firmer tone of voice. Though he's not quite sure how close he gets. "Honestly, have you just ignored all the conversations we've had about personal space?"

"I'm _inviting_ you into my personal space." Sherlock seems to think this makes it better.

"I don't want to be in your personal space," John says.

Sherlock seems to find something amusing about that, and John is horribly, horribly tempted to splash water into his face. _Horribly tempted_.

"I'm not a servant, Sherlock. You can't just put me to work because I'm here, and it's convenient."

Sherlock spares him one, brief glance. "That doesn't change the fact that you are here, and it is convenient."

John shakes his head. "No, now what did you want?"

Sherlock sighs, as if he's being difficult on purpose.

"I was going to tell you who murdered the missing women."

John can hear the dangling threat over the words. He scowls at him, because that's not fair.

"You'll tell me anyway."

"Eventually." There's a wet shrug, and Sherlock turns his phone round, sends a text to someone.

He will as well, he'll sit there and withhold information that John's been needling him for, for _days_. That is exactly the sort of thing Sherlock would do.

"Oh for the love of - sit up then."

Sherlock balances an elbow on the side of the bath, and pulls himself to a sit, water streaming down his back as he goes. John gets up, shuffles to the other end of the bath. There's now a puddle of water working its way through his jeans. And he's probably going to regret _everything_.

Sherlock's spine and shoulder blades are pronounced, under acres of pale skin, all drawn up out of the water and leant forward.

"You should eat more," John admonishes, he can't quite bring himself to reach out and touch yet, because looking already feels indecent.

Sherlock tosses him the soap and he catches it, then loses it, and ends up with it on his lap.

"Eating is boring." He turns his phone, and John can see the National Rail Enquiries website through his thumbs.

"I can almost see your ribs from the back."

John wrangles the soap into submission, rubs it between his hands and glares at the back of Sherlock's neck.

Why.

Why.

 _Why_ is he doing this?

His fingers look dark against Sherlock's back, and he's not even that tan. He wouldn't be surprised if it had never seen the light of day.

"The security guard," Sherlock says simply.

John frowns, surprised, hand stilling for a moment. The man had seemed so...harmless.

"He watched them," Sherlock adds, like he can hear John's confusion. "Listened to them from the security office, and his jealousy quietly festered into a need to destroy them."

John rubs soap into the back of Sherlock's shoulder when he leans forward. He swallows down an odd, tingling numbness, ignores the almost obscene smoothness of Sherlock's wet skin under his fingers, and works his strangely dry mouth around a question.

"Didn't he have an alibi? He could prove he was in the office?"

"It wasn't an alibi at all. Months watching the same CCTV feed. Knowing when people walk their dogs, collect their children from school, put the bins out. He only had to get most of it right."

John's hand is still moving. There are scars, small cuts here and there, a few burns, oddly out of place. He feels most of them under his fingers before he sees them, faint catches of sensation where Sherlock's back isn't smooth and perfect, warm from the water.

"You can't ask me to do things like this, you know." It's supposed to sound more irritated than it does. But all the hard edges he intended are missing. It's far too quiet. It sounds disturbingly like a plea.

Sherlock makes a noise, as if to point out that he currently _is_ doing it. John realises, suddenly, how long he's spent focusing on the details, details he shouldn't be focusing on. Because he's not Sherlock and these particular details shouldn't matter. He cups water and sluices Sherlock's back clean. There's so damn much of him, soap sliding away, and settling at the bottom of his spine. On purpose, as if to punish him for his own lapse of attention.

"John."

"Shut up," John tells him. Because whatever it is, it isn't important, or relevant, at all.

There's another low, vibration of laughter. John can't help thinking about how easy it would be, to push a hand up into Sherlock's damp hair, tug his head back and see the whole naked line of him. To tell him to be quiet, and slide a hand down his chest, bite the long stretch of his throat and work him until he comes -

And now he has an erection.

The day is officially _perfect._

"There, done." John pulls away and drops the soap in the bath, let Sherlock find it.

Sherlock's head tilts back, one eyebrow raised, and there's no excuse at all for the little smirk he's wearing. Like John is an experiment he wants to keep running, over and over, just for the hell of it.

"You look flushed."

"Are you bloody surprised," John says testily. "I'm pretty sure I just went further with you than I did with my first girlfriend. Which is entirely your fault. You cock-block me at every opportunity, and then invite me into the bathroom while you're naked, and then bribe me into touching you. How in the name of god, do you expect me to not end up thinking about what you'd look like bent over the sink?"

John runs out of breath, and words, and then realises exactly what he's said.

There's a low, messy splash, that makes sense surprisingly quickly in John's brain.

"That was your phone wasn't it?" he asks, and he can't help but feel just a little bit smug.

"Yes," Sherlock says firmly. "Yes, it was."


End file.
